A Long Line of Dead Men Read online

Page 3

 

  When the coffee came he patted his breast pocket and gave a snort of ironic amusement. "Now thats funny," he said. "Did you see what I just did?"

  "You were reaching for a cigarette. "

  "Thats exactly what I was doing, and I quit the goddamn things more than twelve years ago. Were you ever a smoker?"

  "Not really. "

  "Not really?"

  "I never had the habit," I explained. "Maybe once a year I would buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke five or six of them one right after the other. Then I would throw the pack away and not have another cigarette for another year. "

  "My God," he said. "I never heard of anyone who could smoke tobacco without getting hooked on it. I guess you just dont have an addictive personality. " I let that one pass. "Quitting was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. Sometimes I think its the only hard thing I ever did. I still have dreams where Ive taken up the habit again. Do you still do that? Have yourself a little cigarette binge once a year?"

  "Oh, no. Its been more than ten years since I had a cigarette. "

  "Well, all I can say is Im glad theres not an open pack on the table. Matt"- we were Matt and Lew by now- "let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of a club of thirty-one?"

  "A club of thirty-one," I said. "I dont suppose that would have anything to do with this club. "

  "No. "

  "Ive heard of the restaurant, of course. Twenty-one. I dont think-"

  "Its not a specific club, like the Harvard Club or the Addison. Or a restaurant like Twenty-one. Its a particular kind of club. Oh, let me explain. "

  The explanation was lengthy and thorough. Once he got started, he reported on that evening in 1961 in detail. He was a good storyteller; he let me see the private dining room, the four round tables (eight men each at three of them, six plus Champney at the fourth). And I could see and hear the old man, could feel the passion that animated him and caught hold of his audience.

  I said Id never heard of an organization anything like what hed described.

  "I guess you didnt hang out much with Mozart and Ben Franklin," he said, with a quick grin. "Or with the Essenes and the Babylonians. I was thinking about that the other night, trying to decide how much of it I believe. Ive never really researched the subject beyond an occasional desultory hour in a library. And I never came across an organization anything like ours. "

  "And no one youve mentioned it to has been familiar with anything similar?"

  He frowned. "I havent mentioned it much," he said. "To tell you the truth, this is the first detailed conversation Ive ever had on the subject with someone who wasnt a member himself. There are any number of people who know I get together with a group of fellows once a year for dinner and drinks, but Ive never talked about the groups links to the past. Or the death-watch aspect of the whole thing. " He looked at me. "Ive never told my wife or my children. My best friend, weve been close for over twenty years, and he has no idea what the club is about. He thinks its like a fraternity reunion. "

  "Did the old man tell everybody to keep it a secret?"

  "Not in so many words. Its hardly a secret society, if thats what you mean. But I left Cunninghams that night with the distinct feeling that this thing Id become a part of ought to be kept private. And that conviction deepened over the years, incidentally. It was understood early on that you could say anything in that room with the certain knowledge that it would not be repeated. Ive told those fellows things I havent mentioned to anyone else in the world. Not that Im a man with a lot of secrets to tell or not to tell, but I would say Im an essentially private person and I guess I withhold a good deal of myself from the people in my life. For Christs sake, Im fifty-seven years old. You must be close to that yourself, arent you?"

  "Im fifty-five. "

  "Then you know what Im talking about. Guys our age grew up knowing we were supposed to keep our innermost thoughts to ourselves. All the pop psychology in the world doesnt change that. But once a year I sit around a couple of tables with a bunch of men who are still virtual strangers to me, and more often than not I wind up opening up about something I hadnt planned on mentioning. " He lowered his eyes, picked up the saltcellar, turned it in his hands. "I had an affair a few years back. Not a quick jump on a business trip, there have been a few of those over the years, but a real love affair. It went on for almost three years. "

  "And no one knew?"

  "You see what Im getting at, dont you? No, nobody ever knew. I didnt get caught and I never told anybody. If she confided in anyone, and I assume she must have, well, we didnt have friends in common so its not material. The point is that I talked about that affair on the first Thursday in May. More than once, too. " He set the saltcellar down forcefully. "I told her about the club. She thought it was morbid, she hated the whole idea of it. What she did like, though, was the fact that she was the only person Id ever told. She liked that part a lot. "

  He fell silent, and I sipped my coffee and waited him out. At length he said, "I havent seen her in five years. Well, hell, I havent had a cigarette in twelve, and I damn well wanted one for a minute there, didnt I? Sometimes I dont think anybody ever gets over anything. "

  "Sometimes I think youre right. "

  "Matt, would it bother you if I had a brandy?"

  "Why should it bother me?"

  "Well, its none of my business, but its hard not to draw an inference. It was Irwin Meisner who recommended you. Ive known Irwin for years. I knew him when he drank and I know how he stopped. When I asked him how he happened to know you he said something vague, and on the basis of that I wasnt surprised when you didnt order a drink. So- "

  "It would bother me if I had a brandy," I told him. "It wont bother me if you have one. "

  "Then I think I will," he said, and caught the waiters eye. After the man had taken the order and gone off to fill it, Hildebrand picked up the saltcellar again, put it down again, and drew a quick breath. "The club of thirty-one," he said. "I think somebodys trying to rush things. "

  "To rush things?"

  "To kill the members. All of us. One by one. "

  3

  "We got together last month," he said. "At Keens Chophouse on West Thirty-sixth Street. Thats where weve been holding our dinners ever since Cunninghams closed in the early seventies. They give us the same room every year. Its on the second floor, and it looks like a private library. The walls are lined with bookshelves and portraits of somebodys ancestors. Theres a fireplace, and they lay a fire for us, not that thats what you necessarily want in May. Its nice for atmosphere, though.

  "Weve been going there for twenty years. Keens almost went under, you know, just when we were beginning to settle in there. That would have been tragic, the place is a New York institution. But they survived. Theyre still there, and, well, so are we. " He paused, considered. "Some of us," he said.

  His glass of Courvoisier was on the table in front of him. He still hadnt taken a sip. From time to time he would reach for the small snifter, letting his hand cup the bowl, taking the stem between his thumb and forefingers, moving the glass a few inches this way or that.

  He said, "At last months dinner, it was announced that two of our members had died in the preceding twelve months. Frank DiGiulio had suffered a fatal heart attack in September, and then in February Alan Watson was stabbed to death on his way home from work. So weve had two deaths in the past year. Does that seem significant to you?"

  "Well…"

  "Of course not. Were of an age when death happens. What significance could one possibly attach to two deaths within a twelve-month period?" He took the glass by its stem, gave it a quarter-turn clockwise. "Consider this, then. In the past seven years, nine of us have died. "

  "That seems a little high. "

  "And thats in the past seven years. Earlier, wed already lost eight men. Matt, there are only fourteen of us left. "

  Homer Champney had told them hed probably be the first to go. "And thats as it should be,
boys. Thats the natural order of things. But I hope Ill be with you for a little while, at least. To get to know you, and to see you all off to a good start. "

  As it turned out, the old man lasted well into his ninety-fourth year. He never missed the annual dinner, remaining physically fit and mentally alert to the very end.

  Nor was he the first of their number to die. The groups first two anniversaries were unmarked by death, but in 1964 they spoke the name and marked the passing of Philip Kalish, killed with his wife and infant daughter three months earlier in a car crash on the Long Island Expressway.

  Two years later James Severance was killed in Vietnam. Hed missed the previous years dinner, his reserve unit having been recalled to active duty, and members had joked that an Asian war was a pretty lame excuse for breaking such a solemn commitment. The following May, when they read his name along with Phil Kalishs, you could almost hear last years jokes echoing hollowly against the paneled walls.

  In March of 69, less than two months before the annual dinner, Homer Champney died in his sleep. "If there comes a day when you dont see me by nine in the morning," hed instructed the staff at his residential hotel, "ring my suite, and if I dont pick up then come check on me. " The desk clerk made the call and had a bellman take over the desk while he went up to Champneys rooms himself. When he found what hed feared, he called the old mans nephew.

  That nephew in turn made the calls his uncle had instructed him to make. On the list were the twenty-eight surviving members of the club of thirty-one. Champney was leaving nothing to chance. He wanted to make sure everyone knew he was gone.

  The funeral was at Campbell s, and it was the first club funeral Lewis Hildebrand had attended. The overall turnout was small. Champney had outlived his contemporaries, and his nephew- a great-nephew, actually, some fifty years Champneys junior- was his only surviving relative in the New York area. Besides Hildebrand, the contingent of mourners included half a dozen other members of the thirty-one.

  Afterward, he joined several of them for a drink. Bill Ludgate, a printing salesman, said, "Well, this is the first of these Ive been to, and its going to be the last. In a couple of weeks well be all together at Cunninghams, and Homerll have his name read with the others, and I guess well talk about him. And thats enough. I dont think we should go to members funerals. I dont think its our place. "

  "I felt I wanted to be here today," someone said.

  "We all did or we wouldnt be here. But I talked to Frank DiGiulio the other day and he said he wasnt coming, that he didnt think it was appropriate. And now Ive decided I agree with him. You know, back when this thing first got rolling, there were a few members I used to see socially. A lunch now and then, or drinks after work, or even getting together with the wives for dinner and a movie. But I stopped doing that, and when I spoke to Frank I realized it was the first conversation Id had with any of the group since dinner last May. "